


we could jump in the ocean and sink like stones

by warmth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Happy Ending, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4659111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmth/pseuds/warmth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aang has known Zuko for a hundred and eighteen years. He has known him in death and ice and love. </p><p>“A fully realized soulbond,” Zuko murmurs, “me and you.” </p><p>"You and me," Aang replies, smiling weakly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we could jump in the ocean and sink like stones

**Author's Note:**

> I marathoned atla a couple weeks ago and fell in love with these two all over again.  
> +title is from bones by lewis watson  
> ++I'm at [buckystevc](//buckystevc.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you wanna cry about fire princes and the martyrs that love them

 

_It has been a long winter._

_“Aang,” Zuko says, warmer than the breath of a dragon. His lips burn under Aang’s skin, branding, they’re at his shoulder and down, tongue following the lines of his tattoos like a ship pulled by a river._

_Here they are, in stark contrast. His chest heaves against Zuko’s warm hands, he leans into those eyes, golden and wanting. The lines of his body are laid out in a sprawl, a picture of everything Aang’s ever wanted._

_“I love you,” Aang sighs into his mouth, “I’ve loved you forever.”_

_Zuko’s laugh ricochets off the inside of his stomach, makes him fluttery and nervous with his hands. They’re sliding around in each other, their combined sweat and breathless happiness. The room is hot and hazy._

_The dark haired boy says, “Yeah, well,” stops to kiss the inside of his thigh, “you’re not so bad yourself.”_

-

Zuko is there when he wakes, staring out of the window.

Aang swallows back his dream, the overflow of feelings, his hyper awareness. Zuko’s warm breath touches him even from across the room and everything smells like home.

“Bad dream?” The firelord asks, as gentle as Zuko can be.

“No,” Aang replies, trying to smile. Sweat licks at the small of his back, his palms, his bared collarbones. “Nothing like that.”

Zuko sighs, like he doesn’t believe him, but they let it slide, as they always do. There’s been—tension, lately. It makes Aang afraid.

“Why—” Aang starts, but thinks better of it. “Is something wrong, Zuko?”

He’s twenty-two now, and his hair comes down past his chin in sweeping blacks, twists of a starless sky. The neat bouquet of Zuko’s body is downright holy. His shoulders are broader, his legs sturdy, his mouth sweetened with happiness and purpose. Aang’s never loved him more.

The thoughts are distracting. Aang shuttles them away easily enough, moving to sit up in bed. Zuko eyes the place next to him left open, before settling there slowly.

“Do you ever feel like you’re missing something?” The firelord asks quietly.

“Missing something?”

“You know, here.”

One of Zuko’s hands settle above Aang’s belly button tentatively. Their eyes meet. Aang’s pulse shudders and quickens, blood burning at his cheeks, his chest. He thanks small kindnesses for the darkness around them.

“It feels,” Zuko says, “It feels like someone punched a hole through me.”

Aang’s mouth goes dry. “When did it start?”

-

_Zuko had just broken up with his girlfriend and his mouth looked like a pressed flower when he spoke and Aang’s heart thundered in his chest when he saw him again for the first time just after Zuko had turned eighteen._

_“It’s okay,” Katara had told him, smiling gently. “Aang, don’t you see? You’re meant to be.”_

_“I didn’t want it to be him,” Aang says, irrationally angry. “I was supposed to know. I thought,”_

I thought it was you.

_She laughs and takes his hand. “Zuko will be good for you, some day.”_

_His anger fades into nervousness, and he’s tired, so so tired._

_“What if I’m not. What if he’s doesn’t - want me?”_

_Katara pulls him close. “He’ll want you. Aang, trust me. He’ll want you so bad.”_

-

“A few weeks ago,” Zuko sighs.

Aang shuffles his hands together like playing cards, says, “Near my birthday.”

It’s not a question.

-

_Zuko lights the candles with his fingertips, smoke wafting up to the rafters, grey and sweet._

_“I’ve missed having you,” the Firelord says, quiet. His voice echoes in the dark chambers of the throne room._

_Aang swallows back his pleasure, the warm pit of his stomach turned to flames in Zuko’s presence. He bows his head, smiling._

_“As I have missed being here,” he grins, “Sifu Hotman.”_

_“Don’t start with me, old man,” Zuko replies, lips curling, “Avatar or no, you’re a hundred and eighteen today. I could take you easy.”_

_“Is that so?”_

_Aang blows his candles out a little too hard, the gust catching the firelord’s sharp features, a slow sweeping caress._

Kinder than he deserves _, Aang thinks to himself happily, staring at Zuko through the haze. His golden eyes, the stray hair escaping the knot scrapped together messily at the crown of his head, the gentle slope of his cheekbones. All so intoxicating. Aang would be content to watch him forever, the twitching movement of his pale fingers, his dopey little smile._

_The boy’s voice breaks his revery, says, “I have a gift for you.”_

_“Zuko,” He replies, eyebrows curving deep. “You know that I don’t—"_

_“Want gifts, yes, but I got it for you anyway so — so, no take backs.”_

_Zuko scratches the back of his head and in the right light, Aang would say his cheeks were darker now than a second ago. His silent fumbling is enough to pique his curiosity._

_It’s a rectangular box, sturdy, and Aang rattles it with a grin just to see Zuko pull his hair out. Something clicks against the sides of the wood gently._

_“Oh,” Aang breathes. “Zuko.”_

_They’re beads, Air Nomad beads, the kind he used to string together with Gyatso when they needed calm. The worn grain of them slips in his fingers; they feel like home and Gyatso’s gentle smile, Appa’s fur caught in his small hands the first time they flew together, the smell of apples and a long sticky summer. His eyes water and spill._

_Zuko makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, “I - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought,”_

_“You thought right.” Aang gasps, grips him around the neck and hauls him in, grounding himself the way he never wanted to in a past life, ever floating, “Thank you. Spirits, Zuko,_ thank you _.”_

-

“You know what it is, don’t you?”

Aang has known Zuko for a hundred and eighteen years. He has known him in death and ice and love, has felt Zuko’s pulse beneath his in a thousand lifetimes and more.

He nods.

Zuko covers his eyes, absolutely exhausted. “Please, Aang, you have to tell me. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I feel like I'm losing it.”

“I,” Aang pauses. “I don’t know if you’ll like the answer.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He sighs, “We talked about soulbonds once. Do you remember?”

-

_“I haven’t thought about it much,” Sokka says, reaching up to trace the moon with his fingertip,  “She’ll find me eventually.”_

_“You don’t think that she found you already?”_

_Sokka rolls onto his stomach in the grass, staring up at him, “Is something wrong, Aang? This isn’t exactly your type of dinner conversation.”_

_“I know, I know, I just,” He stares at Katara moving water across the camp, feels like he’s been scraped out, a hull of a body. “was wondering what it’s supposed to feel like.”_

_“I think it feels like coming home again,” Sokka says quietly. “after being away for a thousand years.”_

-

Aang opens the cloth covering his chest, draws a line along the bare skin across his sternum. He tries not to meet Zuko’s eyes.

“My heart has known your heart for a long time.”

Zuko is quiet and still, unnaturally so. Aang hasn’t seen him this way since he was a lost sixteen year old boy staring at his hands, furious, blurry at the edges.

“A fully realized soulbond,” Zuko murmurs. “You and me.”

“Me and you.” Aang replies, smiling weakly. He feels faint, _he’ll want you so bad_ , feels like he’s going to throw up, like his lungs are going to collapse with the force of waiting, of wanting so _badly_ , and —

And Zuko is laughing, of all things.

“I thought I was crazy,” he gasps between hitching peals, “Aang, I thought I was defective. You had Katara, you had everything you always wanted—”

“I wanted you.” Aang holds Zuko’s face in his hands, thumbs at the corner of his scar. “All this time, I wanted you.”

Zuko circles Aang’s wrists, leans into the touch with his eyes closed, makes a low, keening sound.

“I’ve loved you since you were sixteen,” he whispers, pushing their foreheads together. “Every day.”

“Me too, _spirits_ , me _too_.” Aang grips him by the hair at the nape of his neck, seals their lips together and it’s like —

It’s like the world’s coming together, like Zuko is fitting himself inside, his second piece, his split soul. Aang sighs into his mouth, grips him so tight, afraid of floating away. He doesn’t want to lose this moment.

They’ve been apart far too long.

-

_“I knew a boy in another life,” Aang says over the campfire. They’ve been on this island for days and his knees ache with the cold. “He looked a lot like you actually, Hotman.”_

_“Did he,” Zuko replies, he’s nineteen here, moody and absent, flopped back into the grass._

_He pays no mind, puffing flames into the night like he’s adding stars to the sky. “I think I loved him.”_

_Zuko jolts a little bit. “You what?”_

_“Loved him.” Aang smiles softly, drawing hearts into the dirt. “They say the avatar’s soulbond partner gets reincarnated with them. I wonder.”_

_“Yeah,” Zuko says, then pauses. "Yeah, me too."_

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I'll spend the night looking into your eyes  
> Because I want to remember them if I ever fall blind  
> We could jump in the ocean and sink like stones  
> But that's ok with me baby 'cause I'll be next to your bones
> 
> \- bones, lewis watson


End file.
